Here is what can happen when a firm has bad PR. It can go out of business. Cambridge Analytica acted shabbily by taking profiles of millions of Facebook users and developing specific pitches to sway their votes for Trump. It would have gotten away with it too except that it was caught. Clients abandoned the company and it was forced out of existence. There will be other Cambridge Analyticas because politics has few ethics. Winning is everything. Once an effective technique for persuasion has been developed, politicians will use it unless public perception is negative and bad PR catches up with them as it did with CA. Practitioners raised in the campaign mode are more likely to be spinmeisters. They will use tools of persuasion without a sense of right or wrong. As such, they give PR a bad name.
Credibility
Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s dictator, has promised to shut its nuclear testing site in May. Do you believe him? This is a man who has acted bellicosely for years and is the son of a leader who broke his promises more than he kept them. It is hard to think of another world leader with lower credibility. Yet, South Korea is choosing to believe him for the moment. Each side has been making overtures — the North with the Olympics and the South with K-Pop. It is easy to spin scenarios for Kim’s long-term goals. The man is a cipher. He has acted brutally in getting rid of rivals. He continues to repress his citizens. He continues to enjoy the products of the free world while denying them to his own poverty-stricken country. If he has had a change of heart, it is impossible to know what caused it. He might be trying to lift sanctions. He might be pursuing a long-term goal to reunite the North and the South under his rule. It will be up to the South and Trump to determine whether they can trust him. That will be difficult.
Image Problem
Vancouver, Seattle and Portland have an image problem. The three cities are overrun with homeless men and women who reside on the streets because the weather tends to be mild. The three towns want to project a forward-moving economy, but it is hard when people congregate on sidewalks,in alleyways, under bridges and in parks. Portland has emphasized services to the homeless, but the result has been to attract more of them. Seattle and Vancouver seem to tolerate them, but have no particular solutions to finding them shelter. Part of the challenge is that it isn’t just people with no place to live, but drinking and drug problems and mental derangement that drive them out of doors. The homeless are an achilles heel. No matter how innovative they are, the three cities will always be held back by the appearance of dirty people in filthy clothes lying on sidewalks. It is a reminder that they have not done enough to feed, clothe and shelter all of their citizens.